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New challenge for Obamacare: Enrollees don’t understand their insurance plans
Washington Post ^ | July 16, 2014 | Lena H. Sun

Posted on 07/16/2014 2:18:05 PM PDT by Second Amendment First

Nine months after Americans began signing up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, a challenging new phase is emerging as confused enrollees clamor for help in understanding their coverage.

Nonprofits across the country are being swamped by consumers with questions. Many are low income, have never had insurance and have little knowledge of the health-care system. The rampant confusion poses a potential hurdle for the success of the health law: If many Americans don’t understand health insurance, that could hurt their ability to use their benefits — or to keep their coverage altogether.

Community organizations are scrambling to keep up with the larger-than-anticipated demand but are stretched thin. A federal program to help consumers has also run out of money.

“We are hearing this in probably every state that we work in,” said Christine Barber, a senior policy analyst with Community Catalyst, a Boston-based advocacy organization that works with community groups in more than 40 states. “‘Okay, I have my card, what do I do now?’ ”

Health insurance, with its jargon and complicated fee structure, has long been confusing for many consumers, but experts say the literacy gap poses an especially big problem now. Before the opening of the marketplaces, people buying coverage on their own tended to be individuals with higher incomes and more familiarity with how insurance works.

“So what you’ve got is an insurance industry that did not do a good job in gearing up for a population that has never had health insurance before, an Obama administration that did a horrible job on the back-end, resulting in a flood of calls to insurer call centers, and a population that is low-income and is not health-insurance literate.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
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Whataya mean it ain't free? I wants my gimmedats!
1 posted on 07/16/2014 2:18:05 PM PDT by Second Amendment First
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To: Second Amendment First

Julio Herrera, 63, a construction worker, bought what he thought would be the most affordable plan when he enrolled through Maryland’s new insurance exchange this spring.

But he doesn’t understand why he is getting charged for hospital bills when he already pays the insurance company every month. And he did not grasp this thing — a deductible — that was $4,000.


2 posted on 07/16/2014 2:19:57 PM PDT by Second Amendment First
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To: Second Amendment First

“If there is one concept that people don’t understand, it’s the deductible,”


3 posted on 07/16/2014 2:20:39 PM PDT by Second Amendment First
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To: Second Amendment First

Oh, they understand it all right. Obama’s paying for it out of his stash.


4 posted on 07/16/2014 2:21:42 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: Second Amendment First

Low information voters not understanding a low information law passed by low information members of Congress and written by low information bureaucrats.

What could possibly go wrong?


5 posted on 07/16/2014 2:26:21 PM PDT by C. Edmund Wright (www.FireKarlRove.com NOW)
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To: Second Amendment First

“Dee Ductible....” There’s a stripper name, for ya..


6 posted on 07/16/2014 2:27:40 PM PDT by ken5050 ("One useless man is a shame, two are a law firm, three or more are a Congress".. John Adams)
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To: Second Amendment First

he’s 63 and doesn’t understand deductible???? What, he’s never insured anything in his life?


7 posted on 07/16/2014 2:27:52 PM PDT by C. Edmund Wright (www.FireKarlRove.com NOW)
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To: Second Amendment First

You can’t fix stupid. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink it.


8 posted on 07/16/2014 2:29:04 PM PDT by Autonomous User
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To: Second Amendment First

These morons are finally figuring out it’s not free! bahahahaha!!


9 posted on 07/16/2014 2:32:38 PM PDT by rainee (Her)
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To: C. Edmund Wright
Not everyone has your educational, vocational, and social background. Many of these people have never previously had (the privilege or the curse) of having to deal with health insurance.

I wouldn't expect the average man-in-the-street to automatically understand concepts like deductible, copay, co-insurance, MOOP, or capitation, among others.

Some of the newer variations like cost-sharing subsidies in certain silver plans take a moment to sink in even among the better read of the rest of us.

10 posted on 07/16/2014 2:34:43 PM PDT by steve86 ( Acerbic by nature, not nurture)
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To: Autonomous User
I bet Julio voted for Clown Prince nobama and other idiot DIMs/LIBs. If that is the case, I laugh at his predicament. Bwahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! (Oh, by the way...maryland is THE Freak state.
11 posted on 07/16/2014 2:34:49 PM PDT by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp?)
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To: Second Amendment First
The article makes a valid point. It takes a degree of comprehension and financial sophistication to benefit from insurance. A lot of lower income people don't have cars, homes, life insurance (etc) so they will have trouble understanding how insurance works and deriving full benefit from it.

They'll also be vulnerable when the insurance companies start denying claims. For all of these reasons, clinic-style medicine would be much better for a lot of the formerly uninsured.

12 posted on 07/16/2014 2:35:23 PM PDT by grania
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To: Autonomous User

But you can make the horse drink the Kool-Aid - and make him think it was his idea.

Stupid not only can’t be fixed, it is the one crime for which the Universe always extracts punishment....


13 posted on 07/16/2014 2:36:12 PM PDT by alloysteel (Most people become who they promised they would never be.)
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To: rainee

“But he said he doesn’t understand why he has to pay premiums when he is on vacation”

Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up..


14 posted on 07/16/2014 2:38:39 PM PDT by rainee (Her)
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To: Second Amendment First

I can offer some advice.

1. Look up the definition of “deductible”.
2. Buy a pair of glasses in order to facilitate the reading of the fine print.
3. Erase the phone numbers of all your doctors. You won’t be needing those anymore.
4. Buy a new car. You may be driving to the other end of the state for your doctors appointments.
5. Buy a real high quality calendar. Sometimes it’s hard to remember doctor appointments that are far in the future.
6. Get a second job. The rates will be going up every year. Forever.


15 posted on 07/16/2014 2:40:09 PM PDT by InterceptPoint (Remember Mississippi)
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To: steve86

I would expect the average man on the street to understand deductible and co pay. Maybe not all the other, but yes, if you call yourself a man, there are some basics one should have.

If you’re a boy on the other hand…..


16 posted on 07/16/2014 2:42:50 PM PDT by C. Edmund Wright (www.FireKarlRove.com NOW)
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To: Second Amendment First

The good news is that you now have a brand new Obamacare policy and it only cost 2X what an insurance policy would have cost you before Obamacare.

The bad news is that no doctors or hospitals will accept your Obamacare policy.

Would you like a free Obama phone?


17 posted on 07/16/2014 3:01:12 PM PDT by Bubba_Leroy (The Obamanation Continue)
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To: Second Amendment First

Many are paying $100 a month for policies with $12,000 deductibles: no they don’t understand, but they think the administration is “on their side”.


18 posted on 07/16/2014 3:01:41 PM PDT by Theodore R. (Liberals keep winning; so the American people must now be all-liberal all the time.)
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To: Second Amendment First
Nobody understands all of 0bamacare.
Even if you manage to read and correctly parse all the text in front of you, it does not mean what you think it does anyway.

19 posted on 07/16/2014 3:03:20 PM PDT by BitWielder1 (Corporate Profits are better than Government Waste)
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To: Second Amendment First

It can be tempting to laugh at the ignorance of the “little people”, but in the words of the late Ann Willis Richards, D-TX, talking about the first and second Bushes, they “cain’t he’p it.”


20 posted on 07/16/2014 3:04:34 PM PDT by Theodore R. (Liberals keep winning; so the American people must now be all-liberal all the time.)
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